15 minutes

Fresh out of the studio, in episode 340, Rama Mamuaya from DailySocial in Indonesia joined us to discuss a potential merger between Gojek, Indonesia’s largest ride-hailing app and Tokopedia, the largest ecommerce site in Indonesia, and what it would mean for the most important market in Southeast Asia as well as their key rivals: Grab and SEA Group with Shopee. Rama introduced the backstory of Tokopedia, and discuss the dynamics on how Tokopedia and Gojek would merge under a SPAC backed by Peter Thiel and Richard Li. He provided the key reasons to why Grab and Gojek will not merge and offered his perspectives on how this will mean for the future of Indonesia startup scene.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion:

Rama Mamuaya (@rampok, LinkedIn), Founder and CEO of Dailysocial (@dailysocial) 

Since your last conversation with Analyse Asia, what have you been up to?

How has the Indonesia startup scene changed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020?

The rumored Gojek-Tokopedia merger

While our audience is often familiar with Grab and Gojek and their ongoing war in the ride-hailing, food delivery and financial payments space, can you by first, provide an introduction to Tokopedia, which we know, is one of the leading ecommerce providers in Indonesia?

Who are the founders and the investors behind Tokopedia? How has the company evolved since SoftBank and Alibaba’s 1.5B investment into the company years back and a recent investment from Temasek at 500M? 

What are the key businesses under Tokopedia and how does the company monetize? 

In Dec 2020, it was reported that Tokopedia were considering going public through a SPACs-merger with Bridgetown Holdings (NASDAQ:BTWN) backed by Peter Thiel and Richard Li. The estimated valuation of the post-merger company is between 8 and 10 billion USD. Do you think that Tokopedia will IPO through a SPAC(Special Purpose Acquisition Companies)? [Lead into the conversation on Gojek merger with Tokopedia]

It has been three years since you are here to discuss Gojek. Can you briefly introduce the company, Gojek and to a certain extent, discuss the other companies such as Gopay which has emerged from the company?

How has Gojek evolved since the departure of its founder, Nadiem to become the minister of education and culture under Jokowi’s presidency?

Gojek has been involved in potential merger talks with Grab and Tokopedia. Let’s start with Grab first. The synergies with Grab are probably the best based on their similarities, and the merger will bring the wars of ride-hailing and food delivery to an end. From your perspective, between Grab and Gojek, which side would benefit more from the merger and why?

Based on a recent article by Business Times Singapore, the merger talks have fallen apart. What are your thoughts on why these two groups could not come to an agreement? Is it due to the long term animosity between both companies.

Pivoting back to the conversation, why is Tokopedia a better suitor for Gojek instead? 

If it is going to happen, how would a Tokopedia-Gojek merger work? 

Does that mean that future companies in Southeast Asia similar to Grab will have no way to enter Indonesia similar to what’s happening with China & to some extent, India as well? 

How do you see Gojek and Tokopedia’s future prospects and what does the merger mean for the Indonesia tech community in the longer term?

Closing

Can you recommend a book, podcast or anything else that has impacted your work and personal life recently? 

Shai Oster, the Asia Bureau Chief from The Information reviews the year of 2019 on how the technology giants in China and SoftBank have fared and offers his annual predictions to what will be happening in 2020. Shai reviewed his 2018 predictions and ranked how each of them have gone for 2019. In addition, he offered his perspectives on how Huawei and ByteDance will face constant challenges in their overseas expansion and whether SoftBank will raise their 2nd fund and the downstream impact from their debacle with Wework trickling down to Oyo, Didi and Grab in 2020. Last but not least, Shai throws forward what he thinks will happen in 2020.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

Shai Oster (@beijingscribe, LinkedIn, TheInformation Profile), Asia Bureau Chief in The Information 

So since your last appearance on the show, what have you been up to?

2018 predictions 

Didi to IPO in end 2019.

ByteDance will continue to grow and fight Facebook in Southeast Asia, but will not IPO.  

Ant Financial’s path to IPO is not clear.

What will happen to Xiaomi with their overseas expansion?

First-quarter of scary growth in China and followed by the wave of government stimulus in China.

State of China and SoftBank for 2019

What are the few events which you feel that 2019 has shifted the trajectory for SoftBank and Chinese tech giants?

Event 1: The US and China Relationship: There is obviously a lot of tension between the two countries, and a display of that tension can be seen in what has happened to Huawei in the last year. There was the trade ban that is forcing US companies like Google & Qualcomm to stop providing to Huawei & also the FCC ban that stops the use of government fund to purchase equipment from Huawei. It seems like Huawei is always in the news these days, from their product launches, to their lawsuits, and also the recent employee detainment allegations.

How has Huawei been doing and coping with all the challenges they’re facing in the U.S.? 

Do you think that the Huawei CEO has been responding well to the critics?

What is the future of 5G for Huawei across the world? 

Event 2: The SoftBank debacle with Wework and Vision Fund 2

We all know that WeWork is not what used to be, so has Vision Fund 1 reached the peak with Wework’s collapse?

How has that changed the way how the public markets have perceived the startup unicorns given that Uber have not performed well for their IPO and Wework failed to even go public? 

Will Oyo in India be the next on a similar trajectory with Wework? 

Will SoftBank be able to raise the 2nd Vision Fund in 2020?

Are the other unicorns backed by SoftBank in danger, for example, Bytedance and Grab? 

Event 3: The public markets for Chinese Tech Startups

Alibaba has just popped in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, after Xiaomi and Meituan-Dianping, do you think that HKSE will be the Chinese tech startups’ port of call for IPO?

With the chaos in Hong Kong and investors moving their assets from Hong Kong to Singapore, do you foresee that the HKSE will lose its pole position as a financial hub and what it means for chinese tech giants planning to go IPO?

Other long term implications & effects to businesses & tech companies? 

Event 4: Bytedance

Will Bytedance end up in the same predicament similar to Huawei?

Bytedance is also getting pushback in India, does that mean that the overseas growth potential for this company will end? 

Paul William Bradley, chairman and founder of the Caprica International joined us in a conversation to discuss business leadership, working with Asian family businesses, the future of logistics and supply chain in Asia and his role to guide and mentor entrepreneurs. In the first of a two part conversation, Paul shared his story on how he moved from the United States to Asia and become an established business leader working with the leading Asian family businesses in logistics & supply chain and the interesting lessons learnt from culture to people management in his journey across Asia.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

Paul William Bradley (@paulwbradley, LinkedIn), Chairman of Caprica International (Facebook, @capricaint) [0:46]

I want to start from your current role and then move backwards. What is your role and coverage as the Chairman of Caprica International? [1:30]

How did you start your career? [3:16]

Before you are involved in international business, you served as a congressional assistant to US Senator Paul Laxalt in the US Senate and then parliamentary assistant to Geoff Lawler in British House of Commons. What has he learned from inspiring political leaders. Hear Paul share his stories with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Lee Kuan Yew [5:16]

How has that experience in politics shaped your way of thinking about business? [7:36]

Operating with Family Businesses in Asia

You moved to Asia and become a business operator in creating new business entities, re-organizing across different industries, and your focus is in shipping, logistics and supply chain management arenas. How was that experience like and how you navigate businesses in Asia? [9:38]

Paul share his story with NYK Line with Mitshibushi Group in Japan, HAVI Group/BDP Asia in Singapore, IDS Logistics with Li and Fung in Hong Kong, Arshiya International with the Mittal family (known for the Mittal builders) in India. As an experienced business leader working with Victor Fung and the Mittal family, what are the interesting lessons working with the movers and shakers in the country? [10:15]

From working with these Asian family business leaders who are movers and shakers, what is the most surprising things you learn about working within Asian culture? Paul discuss the Japanese and Chinese business culture in how they develop strategy and implementation. [14:05]

What is the Singapore culture like? [17:33]

One thing that I really liked about your story is how you manage people to work with you during the YEN event, can you talk about how you motivate people to work with you? [19:13]

Paul talking about how he stays in touch with the people who he worked with and how far they evolve. [22:50]

What advice will you give to younger people in hiring and managing people, for example, in extreme situations where you have to make people redundant or in normal situations when you inherit your teams? Paul discuss how Victor Fung and Ar will bring in experts and thought leaders to educate the team. [22:30]

Biography of Paul Bradley:

Paul W. Bradley has been involved in international business throughout his career, primarily in Asia. He has established new business entities in China, South East Asia, India and the United States and managed businesses across 14 countries. Mr. Bradley is the Chairman and CEO of Caprica International; Vice Chairman and Board Member of Supply Chain Asia; Asian Advisory Board Member for Avista-Houlihan Lokey Investment Bank; serves on the Industry Advisory Board for the S.P. Jain School of Global Management; and as a CEO Mentor and...

Bernard and Justin talk all things India and cars with the ever exciting Prasoon, CTO of FirstRide. Prasoon lends great advice to young entrepreneurs looking for problems to solve: look at what annoys you in your own life! India’s burgeoning middle class is increasingly looking to buy cars, as Prasoon explains, car ownership is a significant status symbol in India making FirstRide’s go-to-market timing impeccable.

Consumers use FirstRide to book test drives. FirstRide work with dealers to bring the test drive to the customer’s doorstep as soon as the next day – a luxury that pampers the customer. They drive on familiar roads and can bring the whole family along. Buyers can compare financing options, determine their budget, and apply for loans, all online. We promise them a great price and take a $100 deposit online. Now consumers can buy a car in a matter of 2–3 days, without ever visiting a dealership. (JFDI Profile)

 

 Podcast Information:

You can subscribe to us using this RSS feed and iTunes.

15 Minutes (Beta Season) is produced by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) & Justin Rotman (@justinrotman).

Photo Credits: Tan Siok Siok (@sioksiok)

In an exciting chat, Bernard and Justin talk with Marigold and Tom, the founders of Bakipa. As we learned in the show, Bakipa stands for Babies, Kids and Parents as the marketplace caters to all three! In this revealing discussion, Marigold talks about the success of the duos Facebook campaigns and varying strategies to monetize the marketplace. We expect big things from these two new parents!

A marketplace for parents to buy, sell and search for everything ‘family’ from JFDI.Asia.

 Podcast Information:

You can subscribe to us using this RSS feed and iTunes.

15 Minutes (Beta Season) is produced by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) & Justin Rotman (@justinrotman).

Photo Credits: Tan Siok Siok (@sioksiok)

In the inaugural episode of 15 minutes, Bernard and Justin talk to Don Phan, founder and CEO of Taembe.com (ta-um-bey). The trio discuss the the evolution of e-commerce in Vietnam, a key factor in Taembe’s success. Don also provides insight about Vietnam’s demographics, making it ripe for Taembe and ecommerce in general. We also discuss Taembe’s expansion plans throughout the region. 

Taembe.com from JFDI.Asia : The diapers.com/honest.com adaptation for Vietnam and Thailand.

Podcast Information:

You can subscribe to us using this RSS feed and iTunes.

15 Minutes (Beta Season) is produced by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) & Justin Rotman (@justinrotman).

Photo Credits: Tan Siok Siok (@sioksiok)